Of Illusions and Shadows
by Naiwrath
Summary: The night of Konoha's greatest tragedy marked the beginning of legends. Join the journey of Light Yagami as he is given a second chance at life in a world where children are trained killers and violence is a way of life. Will his intelligence allow him to remake this world in his image? Will he become the God of this New World?
1. Prologue

The full moon bore witness to the tragedy that befell the village hidden in the leaves that fateful night. It had taken just a few moments before the leaf ninjas' will of fire had burnt through the rictus of fear imposed by the malice that blanketed the village with the nine-tails' coming. In that short interval half the village lay in shambles. The mighty swipes of the fox's tails razing houses as a child would topple skittles. Yet the resistance put up by them was a token one. Fire and lightning rained down upon the mighty beast with little effect. The earth beneath it liquefied, dragging it down into its suffocating embrace, yet the monster rampaged on. Its roar a shockwave of sound that bore on its crest the rancor and hatred of centuries spent imprisoned. In the face of overwhelming power, the flames of determination guttered, hope was a distant dream.

A gout of white smoke obscured the Kyuubi and out of it leapt a massive toad that slammed into the beast pushing it towards the boundary wall. On top of its head stood the Hiruzen Sarutobi, third Hokage, accompanied by his student Jiraiya, the toad sage and hope was reborn. Sarutobi's adamantine staff lengthened slamming into the Kyuubi's ribs toppling the creature and pushing it fully outside the village boundaries.

The cheers of the shinobi were drowned out by the beast's affronted roar. It opened great maw expelling blobs of red and blue chakra that coalesced into a dense black sphere that shrunk down to the size of a basketball. The weight of the condensed chakra construct fissured the ground below its feet making the earth tremble in anticipation of cataclysmic forces. The chakra suffusing the air intensified to unbearable levels and brought ninja and civilian alike to their knees. Stomachs and bowels were emptied in the face of the power on display. What could a mere human do in the face of a walking natural disaster?

Jiraiya stood slack jawed and by his side Hiruzen's grip on his staff loosened a strange expression on his face. The Kyuubi swallowed the sphere and spat it out in a single motion towards the village that had caused it so much anguish.

A flash of golden light and a man interposed himself between the speeding chakra sphere and its intended target. Three tri-pronged kunai arranged themselves into a triangle in front of him and the super-dense mass of chakra was teleported far away on contact. The resulting explosion turned the night to day for a brief moment and the shockwaves and tremors that followed collapsed a few buildings that were on their last legs from the earlier rampage.

Minato Namikaze, the fourth Hokage took in the situation and reached an unpleasant conclusion. His stoic face twisted into a grimace, a pain and weariness beyond his years settled upon his visage. Closing his eyes he sighed. The Kyuubi's enraged roars at having been cheated out of its retribution brought him back to the present. His eyes snapped open and he barked out commands, ordering his master Jiraya to restrict the beast's motion with the boss toad summon, Gamabunta. Transporting such a large volume of chakra would require preparation time.

…..

Light Yagami, aka Kira, self-proclaimed God of the New World was dying and apparently dying hurt. It hurt a lot. Matsuda had shot him once in his right hand and then thrice in his right thigh, sternum and his left shoulder. The wounds were like epicenters and wave after wave of pain racked him as he staggered away from the warehouse where his plans for Godhood had come crashing down about his ears. He had been outsmarted. He, the infallible God had been outmaneuvered by Nate River, aka Near, a cheap imitation of his late rival L. His breath hitched in his chest as he stumbled, caught himself and staggered on.

This was not how he had envisioned the meeting going. This was supposed to be his masterstroke to end all opposition. The panacea to his problems, the beginning of his unchallenged reign. Tonight was supposed to be the night when he celebrated his victory.

As Light Yagami dragged his broken and bleeding body into a warehouse he let out a frustrated scream.

…..

Minato blazed through the hand seals that activated the Shiki Fujin, the Reaper Death Seal. The air behind him shimmered and warped, splitting into a rift that opened into the Void. A pair of translucent arms reached out of the rift, their clawed hands grabbed the edges pulling them apart to allow the head and subsequently the body of the Shinigami through.

The monstrous apparition had a knife clenched between its jaws and tattoos covered both its arms. Its shock of white hair elongated and speared into Minato's body pulling out and entangling his soul. Wrapping its prayer beads around its right arm it plunged it through Minato's chest extending the arm till it grabbed the Kyuubi's soul and pulled into Minato. The Kyuubi entangled as it was in Kushina's dense chakra chains was unable to resist its pull and a spiral seal formed on Minato's chest sealing away its yin chakra.

The mighty beast shrank down to nearly half its original size and howled with the agony of having its soul ripped from its body. Kushina, with her chakra dangerously depleted and severely weakened by the twin trials of childbirth and having the Kyuubi forcefully removed from her, was unable to stop the claw that lashed out with the aim of destroying the Kyuubi's intended prison, their newborn son, Naruto.

…..

Ryuk, perched on top of a water supply tower munching his apple pensively. He inspected the core with a critical eye before tossing it down his gullet. No use wasting it, after all it would be his last apple in a long while.

"It was fun while it lasted." he said as he kept his promise of being the one to write Light's name in his notebook.

Lying on the steps of the warehouse, his eyes glossy with pain Light managed to whisper, "I don't want to die." before his heart clenched and the darkness took him.

…..

Blood ran down the claw dripping down from its tip onto the ground near the receptacle that cradled their bawling infant son. The claw after having pierced them both and being restrained by chakra chains had stopped a scant few inches from impaling Naruto. Minato, with the last of his and Kushina's chakra crafted the seal that would house the rest of the Kyuubi's chakra.

The goodbyes were tearful and the Kyuubi raged through it all straining against his restraints and his fate to gain the freedom denied to him for centuries.

A final hand seal, a surge of chakra, a flash of light, a swing of the shinigami's knife and Minato collapsed soullessly on the ground with Kushina's lifeless form on top of him. The silence that followed was only broken by the wails of an infant with a spiral seal on its navel that housed one half of the mightiest tailed beast.

The rift in space-time slowly mended itself as the death god departed the dimension of the living. Unnoticed, a human soul escaped the rift and drifted meanderingly in the air.

….

Those who presume to judge shall be denied judgement. That was one of the basic tenets of the DeathNote. An arbiter must not be influenced by either the lust for heavenly pleasure or the fear of hellish torment. Thus, Light floated in the Void, without a sense of touch, time or space, blind, deaf and mute. Only a residual concept of self, distinguished his soul from the rest of the emptiness.

A perturbation in the fabric of the Void roused him from his nihilistic slumber and a sliver of light penetrated the emptiness. In the stasis of his soul, a primal emotion began to bubble up as he gravitated towards the rift.

His last words began to echo in his being, "I don't want to die. I don't want to die. I don't want to die…." The Void rebelled against his emotions trying to erase them and drop him back to his eternal stupor. Yet the closer he got to the rift, the more the world of the living sang to him, the melody resonating with his will to live.

He pulled and pushed and strafed and strained till finally, he extricated himself from the Void's cold embrace and emerged out of the rift. He floated aimlessly, untethered to flesh, already feeling himself disintegrate till with a yank, he was pulled into an infant's body.

….

In the civilian shelter of the hidden leaf the cry of a new life pierced through the gloom that permeated the atmosphere and rekindled the Will of Fire that was Konoha's pride and joy. Hope was not yet lost. If new life could be born into the village, then it was their duty to ensure that there was a village for it to be born into.

The second coming of Light Yagami brought smiles to morose faces and hope to shriveled hearts. It remained to be seen whether he would become the God of this new world.

...

 **Please rate and review. I look forward to reading your opinions.**

 **Disclaimer: I do not own either of the series used.**


	2. Chapter 1

_Today I am legend._

 _Children are lulled into sleep, protected from nightmares by the stories of the Sage who saved the world from inevitable ruin. Women compare their lovers to me and find them lacking. Parents name their children after me hoping for them to achieve some modicum of fame by association alone._

 _Governments seek me out for my opinions. My friends rejoice, my enemies tremble and all look upon me with awe._

 _Yet, when I look back at the meandering path I took to reach this stage of my life I find the shadow of His hand at every milestone._

 _I cannot recall the last action that was truly my own. My anger rises at being manipulated, a mere lump of clay molded at whim. Then as soon as it rears its ugly head, the anger dissipates._

 _For I would not have it any other way._

 _Naruto Uzumaki; The Sage Remembers, 25 P.W._

….

The Third Shinobi War had just ended and civilian and ninja alike were experiencing the elusive ideal of peace for which thousands of their number had laid down their lives. War hardened veterans and fresh faced child soldiers with jaded eyes alike searched for something to fill the void in their hearts. Some found it in opulence, blowing their wartime remunerations trying to drown out the phantom pains and nightmares that plagued them, with physical pleasure. Some resorted to vice to forget the days and nights of adrenaline and blood hoping to somehow burn out the brain cells that held the memories of the incredulous looks on the enemies' faces as they bled out on their swords. And some brought children into the new world they had wrought to balance creation with all the destruction.

The last was encouraged quite enthusiastically by the village authorities. Their numbers had dwindled during the course of the war due to the casualties as well as a reluctance to bring a child into being in the midst of such turmoil. The peace they had garnered was still quite tenuous and the clouds of war still darkened the horizon, beaten back not vanquished. Thus, every addition to the shinobi force was invaluable and the progeny of powerful ninja generally turned out to be powerful as well. Thus the heads of Konoha's great clans had been discreetly "encouraged" to go forth and multiply.

Many years later when people would mention the Rookie Nine, they would speak of the coincidence of every clan leader's child graduating at the same time. They would not know of this fortuitous "suggestion" that made the legend possible.

Light's parents found it a very agreeable solution and decided to do their part allowing their passions to warm them one cold January night. Thus was Light conceived. Misaka Yoru had grandiose plans for their wedding after the child's birth but all that was left of them was fire and ashes after the nine-tails' attack.

Her lover, Light's father, was dead.

…

The blond Uzumaki was angry. It wasn't the simmering rage that he buried under his fake grins and obnoxious pranks, it was a righteous fury born of watching justice denied.

It was a pathetic sight. The sun had just touched the horizon and tinted the sky red, the bloody light illuminating the sobbing girl on her knees surrounded by three larger children. The one in the middle was droning on about "arrogant Hyuga", "spilt ice-cream" and "ruined shirts". Every word out of his mouth inflamed him further and Naruto's mouth opened to issue a challenge as he tensed to rush into the fray.

A hand on his shoulder stopped him in his tracks.

"Disgusting, isn't it? 'A king that is conquered must see strange looks, so bitter a thing is the heart of man.'" drawled a soft voice in his ear.

Naruto almost jumped out of his skin as the figure of a child his age ghosted past him walking in calm and measured steps towards the scene of schoolyard politics.

"Don't move." whispered the boy without turning back and just like that Naruto couldn't twitch a muscle. In the light of the dying sun the boy's eyes seemed to flash red.

"Is there a problem gentlemen?" the boy asked as he placed himself between the bullies and their teary victim.

"Who the hell are you?"

"Niji Yoru, nice to meet you." smiled the boy pleasantly.

"Get out of the way bastard, this Hyuga needs to apologize for ruining my favorite shirt."

"Oh?" Niji said quirking an eyebrow, "I believe she's doing a fine job of it already."

"Move before I make you bastard." said the leader as he stepped forward menacingly. He drew back his fist and charged past Niji and slammed it into the face of one of his friends, the hapless boy reeled from the unexpected blow and tripped on Niji's outstretched foot and into the last boy, landing in a sprawl of tangled limbs.

"How did you like that eh?" smirked the boy before proceeding to knock himself out with evident enjoyment by means of a well-placed punch to his own temple.

There was silence in the clearing punctuated only by the groans of the pair of entangled boys trying to disengage themselves, one sporting a bloody nose. The girl stared up at Niji with wide eyes as he turned his gaze away from the fallen boys and towards her. As soon as their eyes met his face was split apart by a grin as bright as the sun and he proffered an arm to help her stand.

Ko Hyuga chose that moment to appear in a swirl of leaves. It took him but a moment to assess the situation and he was immediately by his charge's side asking after her wellbeing. Hinata nervously accepted the proffered arm and allowed herself to be pulled up to her feet as she wiped her tears. The bullies meanwhile perceiving an unfavorable turn of events used the opportunity to make themselves scarce, pulling their unconscious friend along with them.

"Thank you for your intervention young man. I would like to know who I am indebted to for taking care of the young lady in my absence."

"I am Niji Yoru, son of Misaka Yoru the owner of the Yoru bookstore in the market district. It was my pleasure but if you would like to show your gratitude then you can grace our shop with your patronage. You and your family."

Ko chuckled heartily at the enterprising child's sales pitch. "Come Lady Hinata, it is getting late and your father is expecting you."

"And young man I'll see what I can do for your business." he threw out behind his back as he was leaving with one hand on Hinata's shoulder.

"Umm, t-thank you." she said as she bowed before leaving.

Niji released a deep breath as he dropped the genjutsu he had placed on Naruto. The blond boy immediately made his displeasure known in a rather loud and violent manner and Niji found himself experiencing a close encounter of the fist-on-face kind.

"Oi bastard where do you get off screwing with me? And what was that thing you used? I couldn't move and those assholes were beating themselves up." shouted Naruto as he straddled the fallen boy who was nursing a rapidly bruising jaw.

"It was a genjutsu you imbecile. Now get off me so I can explain." said Niji as he spat out some blood. A few of his teeth felt loose to his tongue. _The kid is subconsciously augmenting his punches with chakra. Well, it is to be expected given how damn much of it he has._

"Gen-jutsu," Naruto rolled the unfamiliar word around on his tongue. "You mean a cool ninja technique, don't you?" He asked as he got off and pulled the boy to his feet. "And what's an im-be-cil? You better not be insulting me, bastard!"

"Yes, yes." Niji rolled his eyes. "And as for your first question, how are you treated by everyone?"

Naruto's face scrunched up in distaste. "Not very nicely."

"Well then do you think the Hyuga, an elitist bunch would appreciate your assistance?" seeing that Naruto was about to interrupt he held up his hand. "Don't answer. They wouldn't. I don't know about the girl but as soon as the man got here he would blame you for the entire thing and take her away. Also did you have a plan? Those were Academy students. They have been trained to fight, charging in would simply lead to your ass getting kicked."

"Hey! I'm Naruto Uzumaki, future Hokage. I would have wiped the floor with those wusses." Naruto sputtered indignantly.

"I'm right here! You don't need to shout." Niji sighed, _this is hard._

"Anyway, my point still stands. Even if by some miracle you managed to beat them, you would still gain nothing from the encounter except some scornful stares and three new antagonists raring to punch you into oblivion at the next possible opportunity. I on the other hand gained a lot from this encounter. The favor of the Hyuga clan, potential customers for our family store and most importantly, a new friend." said Niji as he extended his hand towards Naruto, a wide grin on his face.

"It's rare to find someone with a sense of justice strong enough to risk intervening in a fight where he is outmatched and outnumbered all for the sake of a perfect stranger. You have my respect."

Naruto blushed furiously at the praise hawing and hemming as he grasped the proffered hand. His grin was wide enough that it forced his eyes closed and he missed the expression that flashed across Niji's face. Condescension and victory twisted that young face into a mask of glee as the last rays of the sun reflected off his eyes tinting them red.

"It is getting late and my mother will worry about me if I do not return in time for dinner. I'll see you tomorrow, Naruto."

…..

There were three things that drove Light Yagami to do what he did in his life. These were the cornerstones of his being, three pebbles placed on a taut rubber sheet denting it and everything he said or did came down to one or more of these cardinal traits. His sense of justice, an overwhelming belief in his superiority and a supernatural power over the deaths of anyone he could put a name and face to.

The DeathNote raised him from the status of first among men to a God of death in his mind. Without it he felt exposed, vulnerable, and weak.

The first year of his second life was especially difficult for him. He was a man trapped in a child's body and he was helpless. Developing eyes that could not distinguish objects beyond a meter away, non-existent hand eye coordination and an utter dependence on his mother for being bathed, fed, burped and changed. In that year Light Yagami rediscovered his humanity and discovered chakra. In that year Light Yagami became Niji Yoru.

…..

The bell jangled as Niji entered the quaint shop at the edge of the Konoha market district. His mother looked up from the magazine she had been reading while sitting at the counter. She had curly brown shoulder-length hair that framed her face in an unruly manner and was wearing a pale pink yukata with half sleeves. She was only twenty three, having conceived at seventeen.

She smiled at the sight of her son, "Welcome home. I'll get dinner ready. Wash up and come down."

He smiled back as he went through the door beside the counter, taking a flight of stairs upwards to their apartment. The smile was genuine. He had loved his mother and his sister when he was Light because that was the right thing to do. His familial instincts demanded it of him and he saw no disadvantage in acquiescing to it.

But when it came to Misaka Yoru he had been there to see the transition from a carefree teen to a mother. He had tried very hard to regulate his sleep cycle as an infant, only to have his iron will undermined by his body. He would feel his lids close at noon and fly open at the most infernal of hours and when he woke, he would be hungry. So he would cry and she would be there, dark circles under her eyes and a tender smile on her lips.

He saw her fight through sleep deprivation and the depression of losing her lover to ensure his comfort. He saw her handle his diapers, when he lost the battle with his bowels, with nary a complaint. He saw her eyes shine whenever she laid eyes upon him. He saw it all, and he fell in love.

Niji Yoru loved his mother. To smile for her he did not need his mask.

…..

He sat at his desk in his room filling page after page with his neat brushstrokes. Exactly an hour after he had started, he stopped. Drying the sheets blowing on them gently, he stacked them neatly and added them upon a pile of more such sheets that were in his drawer, closing it.

He had been transcribing fairy tales and fables from his world, since he had turned four, and using the proceeds from the sales of the books to bolster their income. He published under his mother's name to avoid being dismissed offhand due to his apparent age.

He had begun this practice when he realized that of all the population only the ninja, the samurai and a few priests actually used chakra and living in a hidden village, his career path was pretty much decided for him. And he really wanted to use the mystic energy that enabled man to perform miracles. As Kira each stroke of his pen had been a death sentence in the making and he wanted that feeling of making a difference back. Understanding and mastering chakra would be just the first step to this goal.

He had realized that Konoha depended heavily on its clans, great and small, for the majority of its ninja forces. First generation shinobi were much less likely to succeed than a clan shinobi who had been bred to strengthen their special trait and trained and mentally conditioned since birth. Ninja education was expensive and civilian families with family businesses rarely sent children for training seeing the much higher life expectancy of civic life and the lower cost of the regular academy combined with the need for an heir.

Orphans on the other hand were given a substantial discount on shinobi education and formed a large part of the genin corps though promotion was rare for them. This was ostensibly to give the poor brats a fighting chance in a walled village with no space for expansion where shop space was strictly hereditary and fiercely contested, while shinobi life was purely meritocratic. While the unspoken goal was the generation of low cost personnel for the borderline chores called D rank missions and for evacuation detail during emergencies.

Thus, for a single mother with a relatively lackluster business she would have been hard pressed to make ends meet and afford the rent, village taxes and the academy fees at once. But the classics in Light's world were classics for a reason and they captured the imaginations of the elemental nations as well and the money came flowing in. Even after the ridiculous tax cuts, the proceeds were pretty impressive.

Misaka was awed by her son's literary prowess and the first time she had read his work in his beautiful script, she had shed tears of pride. When he had figuratively strong armed her into taking credit for the work she had protested but finally acquiesced. She hadn't expected the explosive popularity though and the idea of dishonestly taking credit for a book the following generation of children would grow up on filled her with guilt. She had peppered the foreword with references to him yet it had done little to assuage her conscience.

She had tried her best to change his mind about the books until one morning after a particularly heated discussion he had struck her speechless with one statement, "You gave me a chance at life. Mother, do you think this is really enough?"

Sometimes her son scared her with his maturity and his ability to affect her so strongly with so little.

Niji found himself being crushed in his mother's teary embrace. At that moment he felt something he hadn't felt since the moment he had written the third name in the DeathNote and seen the news announcing its effectiveness. [The first time he had dismissed it as a coincidence with a hammering heart and the second time his conflicted conscience had nearly made him throw up.] A deep sense of accomplishment dimmed a little by the fact that the stories weren't his own and that making her happy wasn't the only goal.

His sense of justice balked at a world where child soldiers and trained murderers were considered mundane. To remedy this world where might was right he needed the power that came with the ninja arts. And besides, he missed the feeling of being an exalted being with the power of life or death over his peers. He craved that sense of superiority. He would stand head and shoulders above the rest, he would become the God of Shinobi.

…

Hiruzen Sarutobi sneezed, destabilizing a tall pile of paperwork, sending it crashing onto the floor of the Hokage office, "*sigh* Feels like someone is gunning for my title."

…

The first time he noticed chakra was 12 minutes and 34 seconds after his birth. In that time his soul had thawed itself out of limbo induced stasis and run through the entire gamut of emotions. This being too much for his infantile body's danger instincts, he began crying, reigned himself in and then analyzed his situation and established a workable hypothesis for what might have been the cause of his reincarnation.

The thing is an infant's mind is a blank slate and a veritable knowledge sponge. Ever wondered how infants picked up the spoken language just from the few disjointed sentences uttered in their vicinity? Their minds are hard wired for assimilating and analyzing experiences and associating meanings to them. Thus when Light's fully matured soul's memories and thought patterns were imprinted on top of this framework something truly terrifying was born. Given a chance Light was sure there was no IQ test he wouldn't have aced then.

Alas, the good fortune did not last that long and unable to sustain the extreme glucose demand imposed by all those perpetually firing neurons, his brain began to atrophy in those regions which were least utilized by him as was natural. By the age of four he was forced to come to an unpleasant conclusion: he just wasn't as smart as he had been in his previous life. His thought patterns were the same and he was by far the brightest coin in the stack when it came to brainpower in his age group but genetics made its presence felt. In this case by being a royal pain in the posterior. It was like opening a webpage on Firefox versus opening it on Internet Explorer. He could reach the same conclusions he would have in his previous life but it took more time.

At the age of 12 minutes and 34 seconds [+23 years?] Niji Yoru calmed down enough to notice something about his body which was completely new. He could feel some sort of energy circulating about his body in a way reminiscent of blood, but you couldn't feel your blood circulating in your veins now could you? He sensed the same sort of energy permeating his surroundings and he identified it flowing in a person who bundled him up in some cloth and handed him to his mother. He felt the energy in the atmosphere as he took his first few lungfuls of air.

Then he sensed a different power in the air that reeked of malice and triggered the flight response in his young mind, _run_ screamed his brain, _run,run,runrunrunrun._

Thus at the ripe old age of 13 minutes and 12 seconds [+23 years?] Niji Yoru began bawling his eyes out in his semi-conscious mother's arms.

….

After finishing up with his daily quota of writing Niji let his mother know that a meeting with the editor was due. Completing his pre-bedtime activities he settled himself in the lotus position on his mattress, his fingers interlocked and palms facing upwards in his lap. He closed his eyes and his breathing evened out until he hypnotized himself into a trance and entered his mindscape.

…..

He was sitting in a field of white flowers which stretched from horizon to horizon under a white, unclouded sky. Even the stems and leaves of the plants were a pristine white. There were three large stone arches in an equilateral triangle centered on him in different stages of disrepair. The one directly in front of him was in pristine condition and it was made of quartz that gleamed in the omnidirectional lighting. The one behind him to his left was a construct of marble that had been overrun by white vines and cracks had webbed out wherever the vines had taken root. The one to his right behind him lay shattered in fragments of what seemed like bleached bone.

He focused and a memory shimmered into existence in the quartz arch as if a hologram were being played. He heard the klaxons blaring across the village around two years prior and the subsequent gossip about an attempted kidnapping of the Hyuga clan heir and its failure with the death of its perpetrator. Then came the demands for the clan head's life for 'murdering' a Kumo negotiator and his twin brother's subsequent sacrifice.

The memory skipped forward erratically as various pieces of gossip about the main and branch Hyuga and their slavery via curse seal came together to form a coherent picture of the anachronistic practices and orthodoxy of the elitist Hyugas. The quartz flashed red as his ire at the injustice bled into his mindscape but it swiftly dissipated as he clamped down on his emotions.

The memories continued onto his efforts to somehow remedy the situation. The law books he swiped from their family store gave him answers that displeased him thoroughly. Apparently clan rights prevented any action against the main family for the blatant enslavement of the branch family. Thus began his foray into Hyuga politics and the study of the prominent Hyuga members.

Discrete questions to, preferably female, branch Hyuga he met in the market under the 'boyish charm' façade yielded quite substantial results (apparently he was too cute to resist) and he had an 'in' to the Hyuga clan administration.

Hinata Hyuga.

Discrete observation of the meek eldest daughter of the clan head brought out a lot of insights. Having had to deal with L who held his emotions hidden beneath double or triple bluffs, Hinata was a comparatively easy study. She was an underachiever with the clan taijutsu and with the passing of her mother the previous year she had lost her emotional support and her father had grown even colder towards her.

Constant negativity from the clan elders and her father had blown her self-esteem to smithereens and this combined with the 'soft and kindly' mentality cultivated by her late mother had resulted in further incompetence in Jyuken, which was primarily an aggressive style with a focus on dealing extreme amounts of pain. This was the beginning of a vicious cycle that was sending her spiraling towards depression.

The memory shifted to the current day's morning and he saw again the three academy students systematically dismantled by a Hyuga classmate in the shinobi Academy training area in front of their peers. He watched himself waiting for the three royally disgruntled boys as they stomped out of the grounds after class and then using three chakra strings he connected to their chakra systems to put them in a genjutsu.

Implanting a suggestion into their minds was simple and he followed behind them as far as the strings would allow as they bought the ice creams. He directed them into the adjacent playground and right into Hinata as she hid behind a tree at the edge of the playground as soon as Ko Hyuga had left her on her own.

He dropped the genjutsu and what followed were purely the actions of the three kids. After all, making them do it via genjutsu would mean that he was the one actually doing it and that was abhorrent to his sense of Justice. He was disgusted by how low Hinata had fallen when she agreed to grovel before them. This was when he noticed the other kid walking up to the tree line. Hidden as he was, detection was not a problem unless Hinata activated her Byakugan from the stressful situation. So he watched the expressions on the blond kid's face.

He knew Naruto Uzumaki of course. The loud and obnoxious prankster was difficult to miss on the playground where he tried to muscle his way into the games of the children before being rebuffed by the said children who had been warned away from the blonde by their relations. Niji was a regular to the playground for the sake of building social credibility especially with the children of the clan heads who were miraculously all his age. He had a hypothesis for that too, based off the history texts he had devoured from their bookstore.

His own mother had said nothing to him but Niji had noticed the expressions of the villagers whenever they saw him. The hatred was clear as day, but disproportionate to his pranks as it was, what surprised Niji was the fear that he saw writ there. Why would an entire village of hired killers be afraid of a single kid? Relegating that thought for later contemplation, he moved on.

Seeing the kid about to act, pleasantly surprised him. But as it would potentially upset his plans, he put the hapless boy in a paralysis genjutsu via chakra string. Mentally praising the kid's morals, if not his IQ, he made short work of the bullies.

The memories played out his conversations with Ko and Naruto before they faded away. He had gained much. A link to Hinata, a strong one if he was reading things right, Hyuga patronage to his store and a link to Uzumaki Naruto, that he had a hunch would be useful sooner rather than later. He faded away from the mindscape by disintegrating into white petals.

….

He opened his eyes. Ten minutes had passed in the real plane in relation to the hour in the mental plane.

"Naruto Uzumaki. What is your secret?" he whispered.

...

 **Please rate and review. I look forward to reading your opinions.**

 **Disclaimer: I do not own any series used here.**


	3. Chapter 2: Part 1

_Shackled hand and foot, our Hero was jostled into the court of the King from Beyond the Sea. There he found the tyrant seated on a throne of unclad slaves, each of whose bosoms exceeded a C cup. On each side of the throne, fanning him with palm fronds were two of the most wondrous females he had ever laid his eyes upon._

 _Each swish of the fan was accompanied by a corresponding sway of their full hips. The sight of their partly open mouths sent his blood flowing south and their sensuous half-lidded eyes froze his thoughts._

 _The harsh rasp of the monarch's voice snapped him back to the matter at hand._

 _"Kneel, mongrel! Know you not in whose presence you stand."_

 _"A tyrant and a lecher unfit for the crown. Your people shall rejoice at your end by my hands on this day."_

 _"Insolence! Guards seize him and feed him to the dogs!"_

 _The guards who were converging on our Hero were brought to their knees by his massive killing intent, for the people of their land knew nothing of chakra or the ninja arts._

 _The king's throne collapsed from fear, dumping the man and sending him tumbling down the stairs to our Hero's feet. With a flex of his prodigious muscles he snapped his chains and used them to choke the life out of the man who had caused his beloved Tsunara such grief by murdering her brother._

 _..._

 _Our homecoming Hero was greeted by the sight of an ecstatic Tsunara running towards him. The setting sun had set her straw colored hair on fire while her majestic breasts bounced entrancingly with each step. She slammed into him, knocking him backwards into the woods he had just emerged from._

 _The news of the King's death had preceded him and Tsunara made her gratitude known by locking her lips with his. She moaned when…_

 _Jiraiya of the Sannin, Toad Sage, Protector of Mt. Myouboku, Super Pervert, etc.; Icha Icha Conquest_

…..

Staring at the mobile above his crib got boring quickly. When you are a twenty three year old certified genius, it does not take you long to get over the wonders of painted wooden birds hanging from a rotating frame. But he did end up deducing that he had probably ended up in a world where plastic and technology were not as widespread. The wooden constitution of all his toys and the mechanical rather than electrical methods by which the mobile was kept moving were rather obvious tells.

Despite his curiosity about the other aspects in which this world differed from his own, Niji could not take any action to sate it. His limbs were unable to support his weight and he could see little beyond his mother's face when she carried him or the foot of his crib when he was laid down to rest. Unwilling to live out his new life with the stigma of a freaky genius, he decided to postpone his debut in the speech arts when he found out that Japanese was the language of choice in his part of the world.

That particular discovery opened the floodgates of information for him. He filed away every word spoken to or near him and began piecing together a picture of the world he now inhabited. He learnt of his name as well as his father's face when his mother held him in front of a picture of the two of them standing hand in hand in front of a Mt. Rushmore like monument, mumbling through her tears about how much she wished that he could have been there to see their son. He learnt that a nine-tailed demon fox had attacked their village, which was supposedly hidden in leaves, and caused untold property damage and loss of lives, including that of his father, on the day of his birth.

He wished dismemberment on the multitude of civilians who fondly pinched his cheeks whenever Misaka took him grocery shopping with her. Apparently he had become something of a mascot for the rebuilding process due to the timing of his birth. In relation to the rebuilding of Konoha, he heard praise of professionals called genin who were invaluable to the process.

After hearing several instances of genin, chuunin and jounin mentioned in the same breath as the word ninja he was forced to conclude that he had ended up in some medieval Japanese society where shinobi had proliferated from primarily cloak and dagger activities and taken up a much more public role. He hypothesized that genin, chuunin and jounin were progressive ranks of the shinobi corps where the genin were the new recruits who were in charge of the more mundane and menial activities such as disaster cleanup and rebuilding while the jounin and chuunin formed the administrative and military backbone of the village. This was confirmed a month into his life when he was present for a conversation between Misaka and two of her friends in their bookstore cum house, which had fortunately survived the Kyuubi's rampage.

Apparently the rebuilding was well under way and it had been almost a week since they had stopped unearthing new bodies. A grand memorial for all those who had given their lives in the line of duty had been planned and all were invited. The conversation confirmed his hypothesis and gave him a name for the village headman: Hokage. He learnt of the fourth Hokage's demise to bring about Kyuubi's defeat and how the Third had come out of retirement to retake the position.

The next day he was awoken from his afternoon nap and bundled up by Misaka who was dressed in black. The ceremony was a somber affair held in a large open area with nearly the entire village in attendance. Sarutobi's amplified baritone washed over the masses, speaking of loss and sorrow, of death and destruction, of love and courage and of bravery and the Will of Fire. Niji was thoroughly impressed by the man's skilled use of words and boundless charisma. He played with the emotions of the villagers, pulling on their heartstrings to evoke the darkest of emotions before releasing them sending their spirits arrowing into the sky. The applause at the end of the speech shook the heavens.

They took turns to pay respect to those whose names had been carved on the large obsidian obelisk called the memorial stone. He felt warm drops of moisture soaking his swaddle and looked up to find Misaka crying with him cradled in one arm while gently tracing his father's name on the stone. He was a chuunin when he died, a mere boy of eighteen.

The abundance of military forces, the willingness to weaponize children and well-practiced rhetoric like the Will of Fire that tied in patriotism to the Fire country with social conditioning led him to believe that their country was in a state of constant war or had just finished waging one. He did not have sufficient knowledge to form a concrete hypothesis but he had a feeling that he would not like the way the world was run.

New information was scarce at times and at such times he would turn his mind inwards. The mysterious energy he had felt within himself was still there as well as in his surroundings and in other people. It was the single largest point of difference between his world and this one. Light Yagami's brain lacked an area that dealt with the circulation and detection of life-force and as such, Niji Yoru found that his brain did not know what to do with the additional neurons. Thus, as his soul settled into his new body, instinct took over the task of circulating the chakra in his coils. Yet just as if he had grown a third arm overnight, the addition of this appendage left him hyper-aware of anything chakra. Niji Yoru was a sensor and a rather proficient one.

He began the practice of playing with the chakra when he realized that it responded to his will. The process was very similar to learning how to write with one's non-dominant hand. A process which he had undergone before, Light had been ambidextrous. He wasn't unsuccessful this time either and by his first birthday he was able to control the amount of chakra gathered at any part of his body. An upshot of all this meddling was that his sensory capabilities had improved both in range and finesse. He could now distinguish individuals by chakra in the crowded marketplace whenever he accompanied his mother and he had a complete picture of the flow and distribution of chakra in his own body at any given point of time.

In the interim his sight and musculo-skeletal control had developed to the point that he could walk, grasp objects and throw things with precision. He was still silent though. He wasn't looking forward to starting the charade early.

On the day of his birthday there was a general sense of gloom that pervaded the atmosphere. He was tied to his mother's back, having tired himself out by walking as far as he could, as she bought the groceries for the day. Misaka's mother had died during childbirth and her father had passed away a few months before the Kyuubi's attack, leaving her with the store and with no one to run it in her absence. Thus she was in a hurry to get back and raise some money, a commodity that was dwindling at an alarming rate with two mouths hard at work.

The anniversary of the Kyuubi's attack ripped open half healed scars left by loved ones lost. The generally boisterous populace was subdued, so the two kids running excitedly through the market were easy to spot. They were chattering excitedly about how their father had unlocked their chakra coils and speculating about the jutsu they would be learning. Niji listened keenly till they were out of earshot. His eyes were shining. If even half of what they had said was achievable, then he had been born to a race of veritable deities.

That night when his mother had fed him his dinner and was turning away, he spoke for the first time, slowly and deliberately, "Mother, teach me about chakra."

Niji narrowly escaped becoming orphaned that night. Misaka did swoon though.

...

 **Short update here. Part 2 of this chapter will be up soon.**


	4. Chapter 2: Part 2 Final

**Disclaimer: The series used here belong to their owners. Tonbo Tobitake and Mawashi Dokuraku are Kishimoto originals. They are not OCs even if you haven't heard of them before.**

...

Niji spat out three teeth in the basin after brushing his teeth. They were milk teeth so he wasn't too worried. But damn, Naruto had a mean right hook. He wore a high collared shirt to hide the angry purple bruise on his chin and left for training area 21 leaving a note for his mother on the fridge.

As he walked towards his destination, his mind wandered down various trails of thought. He remembered the first time he had seen the refrigerator. Intrigued by the absence of wires he had prodded and poked around till he had found the set of extremely convoluted symbols inscribed at the back of the insulated metallic box and a corresponding set inside the box. That was the beginning of his tryst with the sealing arts.

His thoughts were interrupted by his arrival at the training ground. The two sources of chakra that he could sense moving rapidly through the undergrowth stilled upon his approach and he found them waiting when he stepped into the clearing. Mawashi Dokuraku was forgettable. Nothing about him really caught eye other than the rectangular framed glasses that he wore. His brown hair was barely visible under the bandana that he wore with the Konoha ninja registration plate sewn onto the forehead.

He had been a chuunin with Niji's father. They had hit it off after a couple of missions together and developed an easy camaraderie. So, when Niji made his precocious demand for training in chakra manipulation, Misaka turned to him. The newly promoted jounin had been intrigued and had agreed to sit with the one year old son of his late friend whenever he could take the time off.

Almost a year later he had apprenticed a hot headed boy named Tonbo Tobitake. This was the second person who was in the training field. Tonbo was blind. His eyes had not formed in the womb and he had been born with empty sockets. He went about with the upper half of his head wrapped in bandages, and with his forehead protector covering his missing eyes. But for Niji, the most important fact about him was that he was a fellow sensor. His chakra sense was refined enough for him to become a highly successful ninja despite his handicap, as demonstrated by his rapid rise to chuunin. Both of them were wearing the grey flak jackets of the Torture and Interrogation division.

…..

Konoha was still recovering from the Kyuubi's attack and thus more missions were being accepted to generate funds for the reconstruction. Also due to the loss of several jounin in the battle with the tailed beast, they were desperately short-staffed, so the existent jounin were worked to the bone. As such, Niji saw his instructor only thrice in the first year of his 'apprenticeship'. But each of these meetings were extremely fruitful.

The first time the stoic man had sat down with him, six months after Niji's fateful request, he had found out about the sensory abilities of the boy. He had explained the concept of chakra as simply as possible and had been internally shocked when the child had absorbed the knowledge like a sponge. Chakra, he had elaborated, was a form of energy that was a combination of physical and mental energies. It was a bridge between the soul and the body. The chakra network was partly physical and partly spiritual, and as such could be accessed externally only by the use of chakra.

Encouraged by the lack of confusion on Niji's face, he had gone on to explain that sensors were an extremely valuable class of shinobi. He gave the examples of the Inuzuka and Hyuga clans. The former who were excellent trackers with their elevated sense of smell and the latter who made for fearsome scouts with their omniscient vision.

He informed Niji that while certain clans enhanced their senses through clan techniques or by means of bloodline-limits or in the case of the Aburame, used their insect familiars for pheromone based sensing, pure chakra sensors were always the result of some trauma in the womb that rendered them hyper-sensitive to chakra. He had jumped to the conclusion that the trauma in his case was the feeling of the nine-tail's chakra as he was being born. Niji hadn't disabused him of the notion.

He stopped the lesson after teaching him some exercises to train his sensory abilities. Before he left, he had taken Misaka aside and explained that Niji was too mature and perceptive for his age. This, he had postulated, combined with his sensory abilities were a sign that the exposure to the malicious chakra at such a tender age had scarred him mentally. He recommended a visit to the counsellors as soon as possible. An anxious Misaka had booked an appointment within the week.

A tremble of a lip here, a hint of moist eyes there and he had manipulated them into diagnosing him with PTSD. His unnatural interest in chakra as well as his unnatural intelligence was explained in his psych-evaluation as a result of living permanently in a state of high-alert due to a fear of death triggered by the demonic chakra. His hypersensitivity had been classified as type-1. The most severe case. Constant productive activity was suggested as a solution to keep his mind off morbid thoughts.

Niji almost could not believe how well his ploy had worked. He had used the excuse to get his mother to teach him how to read and write. Learning how to read gave him the perfect excuse to read every book in the store. He could often be found with a complicated tome the size of his body spread out upside-down in front of him, a look of intense concentration adorning his childish face. Misaka would find the entire spectacle inordinately cute and laughingly ruffle his hair as he easily skimmed through the inverted text.

He read about the politics, economy and the military situation of the world. The books informed him of the days of endless inter-clan skirmishes, the formation of the hidden villages and the great clans that came together to form Konoha. He was careful about how he paced his 'learning', not wanting to draw the attention of the Yamanaka clan who could invade minds at will.

The next time they met, the four-eyed jounin had tested Niji's progress in his chakra perception and had been blown away by the improvements. Getting slightly enthused at having such an apt pupil, he had decided to teach him the process of self-hypnosis required to access one's mindscape which he had recently learnt as a new recruit to the T&I division. It was both a method of centering oneself and a prerequisite to helping Inoichi Yamanaka scan the minds of prisoners. He believed meditation would be very beneficial in combating the PTSD.

After this, meditation had become one of his favored pastimes. He would spend hours in his mindscape testing out the limits of his mental realm. The first time he had visited, he had found only the quartz arch in perfect shape. The marble arch had been a step away from oblivion while the only sign that there had been an arch of bleached bone were the few fragments that remained of it. Over the years, the marble arch seemed to display an improvement in its condition while the bone arch remained the same. He had often puzzled over the appearance of his mental landscape without any result. He still had no idea why his mind looked the way it did.

The most apparent benefit of accessing his mindscape was his discovery that he had access to all of his memories, from both past and present lives. Light had always had a sharp mind for recollection but L's eidetic memory had him beaten in that regard. But in this world where the presence of chakra had resulted in the existence of mindscapes (Dokuraku had revealed this in a later discussion) perfect recall was something that could be obtained with meditation and focus, of which he enjoyed the former and had the latter in insane quantities.

He found that he had absolute control over the contents of his mindscape and that the white flower field was simply the native state that it reverted to when he wasn't actively controlling its appearance. Dokuraku had told him that the form of one's mental landscape was a reflection of their being and as such extremely confidential. He had not asked Niji to describe his.

The third time they had met, it was Niji's second birthday. The man had shown up when his shift had ended (a holiday to celebrate the Kyuubi's defeat and to mourn the losses sustained did not mean that the infiltrators and prisoners were going to catch or interrogate themselves respectively). The jounin had been rather bashful as he had presented a rather large cake to the family of two.

Mawashi Dokuraku was an orphan and familial interactions were foreign to him. His time with Niji's father was the closest he had ever come to experiencing filial love. Niji was such a serious child and he felt great sympathy for the boy he thought had lived the first one and half years of his life in mortal fear. His interactions with the child were refreshing and he had come to look upon him as a little brother. It did not hurt that the boy was a glutton for his instruction as well as a quick study. The combination of these traits had boosted his self-esteem as an instructor and he had agreed to take on an apprentice. The fact that Tonbo was a sensor had helped the decision along. He wanted to introduce the two as soon as possible.

The three of them had shared a companionable meal (both males were not very fond of frivolous conversation) after which Mawashi had Niji run through his sensory drills before they meditated for some time. He had then gone on to show him a few light stretches that promoted growth and flexibility. That Niji would eventually join the shinobi force was almost a fact by this time. His interest in chakra attested to his willingness and even if he had been reluctant, sensors as powerful as him were rare enough that he would have been 'convinced' regardless. Following the stretches the two had settled down to a discussion on the applications of chakra.

This was information that Niji had already read in the Ninja Academy texts that his shop stocked so he expertly steered the conversation to a topic that had been barely touched upon in the books: the art of seals.

"How does the refrigerator work? All I can see are some squiggles inside the box and some more on its back on the outside. I can sense chakra in the pattern though."

"Those are seals." Adjusting his glasses so that they turned white with reflected light, Mawashi continued, "The ones on the inside absorb heat and pass it on to the one outside which releases it into the air so the inside of the box remains cool."

The conversation that ensued was extremely informative for Niji. Fuuinjutsu was in its essence the jutsu equivalent of a ready-to-eat meal. Where a jutsu involved having the 'cooking' (hand-seals) and the 'ingredients' (chakra and elemental manipulation) come together in the field of battle itself, fuuinjutsu eschewed these steps in favor of preparation.

Thus a simple pulse of chakra and an explosive note could have the same in-battle effect as a Great Fireball jutsu. The chakra that actually fueled the technique came from the seal's creator whose chakra was infused in the special inks used for the art with each brush stroke. Fighting solely with seals was a lost cause as by dint of their need for prior preparation, they could not deal with any form of unpredictability in an opponent. Thus the majority of the combat focused ninja shied away from the extremely complicated methods of sealing rendering it an esoteric art in those circles except for the ubiquitous explosive tags and sealing scrolls.

Speaking of sealing scrolls, there were things that fuuinjutsu could achieve that were impossible for ordinary jutsu. No known elemental technique in the world could create a pocket dimension but a piece of paper, some squiggles and there you have it ladies and gentlemen, fuuinjutsu bends the laws of physics into a pretzel, yet again.

Also, the entirety of what passed for technology in this world was powered by fuuinjutsu. Since seal making required chakra, civilians were generally incompetent in the field. Thus retired shinobi or the academy students who failed to make genin were the ones who often took to this art in order to join the Department of Domestic Security one of whose main functions was the maintenance and upgradation of the seals in the village walls.

Some even went into the technology business, using their knowledge of seals to create communication devices (any improvements in the range always brought in money in spades [and security seals to the tongue]) or essential utilities like refrigerators or clocks. Thus sealing was still extremely important in the defense and technology sectors. Not to mention that nothing was impossible for a gifted seal master given enough time.

The terrifying potential of seals was the reason knowledge about them was so restricted. Even the simplest books on the subject required a minimum of academy level clearance. Following the discussion Niji had put fuuinjutsu high in his 'things to learn' list.

"Hindsight is 20/20." It was an eminently quotable statement given its accuracy. Niji had felt the truth in those words in all the hours he had spent wallowing in his memories of his life as Light. His mistakes glared at him, starting from the one where he had felt it acceptable to use the government provided notepad to converse with Takada. If he could have he would have slapped himself topside of the head. The missing pages were a dead giveaway. Why could he not have written on his skin or even asked her to pick up basic ASSL (American Standard Sign Language). He had been coasting on his superiority after getting rid of L that was why. Truly hindsight did nobody any favors. Thus looking back it was unsurprising that Mawashi's decision to have his first meeting with his new apprentice in the presence of a two year old child who he had been instructing on and off for the past half year did not go down well.

Tonbo Tobitake was a casualty of rushed wartime promotions. He had received a promotion to genin and then chuunin in rapid succession as his rare sensory abilities were crucial to the war effort. Tonbo Tobitake had been at the border posts at the ripe old age of ten when the Third Shinobi war had ended. The minor skirmishes had continued well into the next year until a semblance of peace had descended upon the Elemental Nations. He had been drifting for three years.

The state of peace had reduced the need for border patrols and thus the need for sensors had become less pressing, especially chuunin sensors with low genin level martial capabilities. The administration was in a bind regarding him. They could not very well demote him after his contribution to the war effort. Neither could he be risked on chuunin level missions he was clearly underprepared for. The need for his skills wasn't pressing enough.

The fact that he was a first generation shinobi who had lost his family in the nine-tails' attack and was in a financial bind due to the lack of missions was making the situation untenable. Grounded shinobi often went stir-crazy and defection was a possibility given that his early promotion had made him miss out on being fully indoctrinated. This was an unacceptable outcome. So the council apprenticed him to Dokuraku who had recently pulled his name from the active duty rosters and settled down into a mostly domestic existence as part of the T&I cell.

The fourteen year old was prideful and hot-headed. His shotgun promotions had resulted in a swollen head, so he had resented the reluctance to send him on missions he believed were well within his capabilities. Apprenticeship to a jounin was quite an honor and so he did feel quite vindicated about his self-image and was eager for his first session with his new master. What he did not expect to find when he reached training ground 21 was his master sitting cross legged across from a child in a similar posture, both breathing evenly in the depths of a meditative trance.

He was quite nonplussed when both of them turned to face him simultaneously. His chakra sense was phenomenal in both range and acuity. He could focus his sense in a particular direction and cover almost a couple of kilometers with it. Within a radius of 20 meters he was omniscient when it came to chakra presences to the extent that he could distinguish the general structure of a person by the shape of the chakra network. When in contact, he had a near Byakugan like perception of the chakra flow in the coils. Awareness of his own chakra had also resulted in outstanding control.

His chakra sense was phenomenal. It was phenomenal but somehow he hadn't noticed the child until he was smack bang in the middle of the clearing. Both of them were hiding their presences. It was a trick most ninja picked up a few missions into their careers. Not every ninja was a sensor but beyond a certain level, all of them were situationally aware enough that blaring out one's chakra signature would get one noticed.

Every living creature leaked off chakra through their tenketsu at a rate equal to its production in their bodies. This was why the air in areas with high populations had large amounts of chakra saturating the air, especially villages with ninja populations. Hiding chakra signatures involved the withdrawal of a majority of one's chakra to their centers and minimizing the involuntary leakage. This was immaterial to Tonbo as he could sense even the chakra at the core of a person.

He had sensed his teacher even though the near non-existence of chakra emissions had really impressed him. But somehow the child had eluded his radar and even this close he was hard pressed to resolve the blurred presence. This was truly baffling for him. Not only did this child barely out of his mother's womb have the control necessary to hide his presence, he was doing it in a manner that was almost sensor proof, meaning he was a sensor himself, a powerful one at that. Irritation colored his features. He had heard tell of prodigies but this was just ridiculous. Given how developed his coils were, he could at most be three years old.

"Tell me what you can feel." The jounin raised himself from his position, relaxing his chakra suppression. The eerie child remained seated maintaining his.

"The little freak is a sensor, probably as powerful as I am and is using near perfect control to erase his presence in some unorthodox way." He was biting out his words. He was could feel the onset of a headache, 'the brat is three at the most, damn it. I had to work for my ability, for years, before I reached this point. Prodigy or not, this little monster is broken. Three or, Sage forbid, two is too young.'

A slight amount of disapproval coloring his tone, Mawashi said, "I would appreciate it if you did not call him a freak. The poor boy spent the first year of his life terrified out of his wits due to the exposure to the Kyuubi's chakra at the time of his birth. As you would recall, quite a few infants had a heart attack from the sheer presence of the beast. This has rendered him hypersensitive, type-1."

"Now for the matter at hand. The boy has perfect control and I have taken him under my wing as a favor to a friend. We were testing out a new way of hiding presences. His idea. Take a guess as to what is being done here."

Tonbo was aghast, "He is two. Fucking two and he came up with a new way to hide presences. And. And. You are supposed to apprentice me. Yet you are tutoring this brat."

Gesticulating wildly he continued, "His coils are tiny, they are still developing. Isn't it dangerous to allow him to manipulate his chakra? There has to be some rule against letting toddlers handle chakra."

"There isn't." Deadpanned the jounin.

"What on earth is he doing?" Tonbo's face scrunched up as he felt Niji's presence fade away and become progressively harder to detect. Then his mouth went completely round in realization and disbelief.

"H-he's flooding his network and saturating his entire body with a constant chakra level. A level that matches the ambient levels in the air."

He turned shakily to the impassive man who had been watching his reaction, "He thought this up himself?" His voice was a whisper, desperately pleading for a negative answer.

"Yes."

"Heh. He-heh." He took a step backwards. "Impossible. A two year old with enough skill to achieve the holy grail of sensors: [Blankness]." His voice cracked.

Tonbo fled.

Mawashi frowned. That had been pretty much the worst case reaction. The best case would have been if Tonbo had accepted the idea of being upstaged by a two-year old and looked deeper into the technique and identified its glaring weakness. The concept of matching chakra levels with the ambient levels was brilliant but it only worked if you had miniscule reserves like Niji.

To even attempt it, Mawashi would have to purge himself of chakra to near exhaustion before the levels in his body matched the atmospheric background. Also the levels would need constant adjustment based on the varying levels of aerial chakra. Thus only the best sensors could even think of trying. But the merits were immense. It was a perfect defense against chakra sensors and even the Byakugan would treat the user as a corpse and chakra exhaustion was a small price to pay for the opportunity to escape enemy pursuit when outnumbered. It was a godsend for wounded ninja in hostile territory who had exhausted most of their chakra and wished to avoid detection.

He had considered Tonbo's reaction as one of the possibilities. After all the boy was extremely proud of his abilities. His ego and self-esteem had been totally crushed by his meeting with Niji and his only stand out skill had been systematically circumvented. A shinobi was 'one who endured' and he had hoped for some mental fortitude from the boy. Yet he wasn't too disheartened. He was there for that very reason. He would shore up the boy's mental strength. He was after all in T&I, any apprentice of his would need to face mind games worse than this before he was finished with them. The boy's abilities though were as advanced as the war reports made them out to be.

Mawashi had been unable to sense Niji for quite some time before Tonbo had shown up and found it only mildly difficult to notice Niji's signature. Not until the technique had been nearly perfected had Tonbo lost sight of the little savant.

The sun drifted further and further west, staining the underside of the clouds salmon, then orange and finally a muted crimson when the disc of the sun bit into the horizon and sent shadows spreading like ink across the canopy of the surrounding forest. He looked over at the prodigy.

He shivered slightly when his chakra sense returned a blank.

….

Mawashi's eyes narrowed at his appearance. "You used a genjutsu on your peers."

Niji was always impressed by how intuitive the man's thought processes were. Mawashi used every scrap of information to reach his conclusions. His character, his injuries, his clothing, everything was a variable in Mawashi Dokuraku's calculations. But, to be sure, "How did you conclude that?" His nod was an acceptance of guilt.

"You have a bruise, which is an unlikely state of affairs given your proficiency with chakra enhancements. So you let someone hit you or someone with upwards of chuunin level strength assaulted you. Chuunin and jounin are too busy to rough up a pre-academy student so you willingly let someone hit you because you felt guilty. Knowing you, it would mean that you used a genjutsu on someone helpless against it, this points to your peers, without justification."

Niji nodded and filled them in on the circumstances, excluding his manipulation of the events other than paralyzing Naruto and his logic behind his actions. He noticed the unease on both of their faces at the mention of Naruto. It was well hidden but it was there. 'Village secret?'

"Well you were the more efficient and effective option so I don't really see a problem here." Tonbo had really warmed up to him after he was done with his self-pity.

"I _ approve of your course of action."

'The direct method is the better option here I think.' Niji thought.

"Sensei. Senpai. What is wrong with Uzumaki Naruto? I mean why is he treated like a quarantine patient?"

"Aah _ how do I put it _" Tonbo demurred.

"You lack the clearance level for this information." Mawashi finished for him.

"Civilian parents know about it." Niji deadpanned.

"It is age based. Please drop this line of questioning. It is S-Rank classified information."

'Well, well. Treason charges for revelation to outside parties. Execution. This is heavy material.' Niji concluded before acquiescing.

"Fine."

His mentor and fellow pupil nodded in a relieved manner before resuming their stealth training while Niji sat cross legged on a flat rock and concentrated on tracking their positions. The exercise involved Tonbo suppressing his presence and eluding Mawashi for as long as possible. To mitigate the unfairness of his sensory capabilities, Niji would track him and keep pointing in his direction like a human compass. Mawashi despite not being a sensor, had a high situational awareness and any careless or rapid movements would give Tonbo away. Staying still was also not an option due to his location being pointed out.

Thus Tonbo used whatever trick he could to confuse Niji while silently circling away from his teacher. Masses of illusory clones while matching their chakra signature, shunshin while suppressing the chakra flare and even a shadow clone at one point to split his attention. Tonbo tried every way he could think of to shake off the finger that was pointing at him. Niji on the other hand was using the principle behind the three cup game to track him. He latched on to the original's location and followed him with his sense through all his maneuvers.

He frowned when Tonbo used the shadow clone but managed to split his attention enough to keep track of both of them.

Just as he was almost at the edge of the training field and was going to confirm his victory in the training exercise by crossing it, Tonbo felt his clone dispelling due to a kunai to the back. Its memories warned him that Mawashi was using [Blankness] in order to evade his chakra sense while keeping a shadow clone with half of his chakra ready to dispel in case his stealth was broken and he was forced to engage.

Tonbo ran through his options. He could keep going but now that his clone was out of the picture, his location would be pointed out by Niji and Mawashi had the upper hand in this game of stealth. He could try to take out Mawashi's shadow clone and force its chakra back into the original thereby revealing his location. But again, Niji pointing him out to the clone would mean that this option entailed combat and even with the one hit restriction on the clone he could not picture a scenario where he came out unscathed from the encounter. This would leave him weakened for the encounter with the original.

Thus he decided that since his stealth was for all intents and purposes broken, he would abandon it in favor of a mad dash towards the border considering that the Mawashi using [Blankness] did not have chakra for enhancements. The precious second of delay between the clone realizing his plan and dispelling to give the original the chakra necessary for pursuit would give him a real possibility of success.

His chakra flared as he jumped from tree to tree leaving branches splintered in his wake. He felt Mawashi's presence disappear from the center of the training ground and reappear _ on the branch he had been aiming to land on next. He sensed the chakra enhanced fist make contact with his solar plexus just as he concentrated most of his chakra there for defense. Despite his last ditch effort he was sent crashing into a tree trunk. The wood splintered with the force of the impact and his breath along with his consciousness left his body.

He awoke to the sense of healing chakra treating his wound. He waited until the pain had faded to manageable levels and sat up. Mawashi sat down completing the triangle of him, Niji and Tonbo.

"Niji summarize." After Niji had acquiesced to Mawashi's order, they began analyzing the exercise.

"I began sprinting soon after my clone was taken out. There wasn't enough time for you to reach me from the other side of the field, not without breaking stealth. How did you manage it?" Tonbo asked.

"It was a double bluff that relied on your lack of sight to work. I set the kunai trap on a tree trunk and then maneuvered your clone in front of it with the threat of my clone and had it set it off. You assumed that it was me under [Blankness] since you did not feel or hear yourself snapping any wires while I was waiting at your predicted exit point blanked out. You know the rest."

Niji pointed out, "Senpai you are too rash. You could have easily stalled him out when you found out that he was using the shadow clone and [Blankness] combo. Since sensei could not see me due to the forest cover, your stealth was effective again. A shadow clone takes a lot of chakra to maintain and since your own had been dissipated you should have just waited till sensei's dispersed or he was forced to dispel it and break stealth to prevent having to fight without chakra and to get an update on your position."

….

This was their usual routine whenever Niji came to train with them. They would have a training exercise, make him summarize it and then run scenarios of how they could have done it differently with Niji pointing out flaws in their reasoning wherever he could. After Tonbo had accepted Niji as a fellow student he had taken over his sensory training. As a survivor of the third Shinobi war he had an idea of nearly every tactic both foreign and domestic ninja used to evade sensors and between the two of them they had dreamt up counters to all of them. All that is except the vaunted [Blankness].

Pitted frequently against sensors as powerful as them had made Mawashi gain a much higher appreciation for the technique and he had decided to learn it. Despite not being a sensor, as an adult his chakra reserves had stabilized and thus his control over it was excellent from long practice wielding it. Thus he was able to saturate his body evenly with chakra and with Niji and Tonbo's help, he had mastered the amount he had to sacrifice to reach [Blankness]. Several trips to the hospital due to chakra exhaustion had been great motivators and he had mastered it within a reasonably short span of time.

Mawashi had decided that until Niji's reserves were adequate he would not teach him any form of chakra intensive techniques. Niji had not complained when he had felt the drain even the most basic of Earth style jutsu had on the jounin. He had also refused to teach him anything that the academy would eventually cover. This included surprisingly little and only included basic taijutsu and the art of thrown weapons: shurikenjutsu, some control exercises, trap making and a few basic techniques such as substitution, cloning, camouflage and transformation.

He had instead begun instructing Niji in genjutsu. The basic premise of Mawashi's favored branch of genjutsu was suggestion. The user implanted a suggestion into the victim's brain by using his own chakra to alter the flow of chakra in the victim's brain. The victim then acted upon the suggestion. These were difficult to detect and required a constant connection between the chakra of both involved parties. These were also easy to dispel as simply realizing that the desire was not your own broke the technique and also made it impossible to suggest the same thing to the person when he was on guard against it.

Another branch of genjutsu was the illusion arts. Illusions were notoriously difficult to cast as they required the syncing of the victims subconscious completely with the caster's consciousness. Once this was achieved via some form of trigger, generally visual or acoustic, the caster had to imagine the desired illusory world and trap the victim in it. They had their advantages as the techniques did not need constant chakra flow and breaking an illusion required stopping one's chakra completely and restarting its flow to disrupt the technique. Not only was this difficult to execute, it required time which in a fast paced battle could mean the difference between life and death.

The problem was that illusions were easily detectable as creating a completely detailed illusory world in the heat of battle was fraught with difficulty. Missing shadows, the absence of air resistance, unnatural colors, different positions of clouds or even altered smells could give the game away. Yet there existed genjutsu specialists that managed to do just that even against multiple opponents. Of note were the Uchiha clan whose eyes among other abilities gave them the power to skip the most difficult first step by using their Sharingan as triggers.

Due to the basic requirement of controlling an opponent's chakra, genjutsu required near perfect chakra control and were very light on chakra cost. It also helped that both Niji and Tonbo were immune to genjutsu due to their hypersensitivity to chakra. For these reasons Mawashi had taught Niji the art and when the boy had reached five years of age, Mawashi had tested him.

He had been wiping his glasses on his sleeve for a full three minutes before his hand had suddenly stilled and a wide grin had split his face to mirror the one Tonbo had been sporting for the past minute.

….

He wandered through the streets alone, always alone. The people, they said nothing to him, did nothing to him but always there were the hissing whispers and they left him, alone, alone, alone _ Their lips were always tightly pursed, noses wrinkled as if trying not to breathe in something foul whenever he walked by. Parents gently guided their children away from him. Always he was alone, in the end, always alone.

Early on he learned not to look into their eyes. It was their eyes that spoke, eyes that said to him, "You don't belong here!" They'd then turn up their noses and gaze at him as if they'd stepped in something foul. Or they'd look away as if he would disappear if only they could ignore him to death. He was shunned pure and simple.

He liked orange because it was the sort of in-your-face color that drew the eye just like his shock of unruly blond hair. He did not think too deeply on it, even negative attention was attention. It was better to be reviled than to be ignored. If they were looking at him _ so long as they saw him and knew that he existed _ even if they hated him for some unfathomable reason _ he'd show them! He'd show them all!

…

A hand fell on his shoulder and he turned, eyes widening, as a fist smashed into his face sending him sprawling on the musty earth. He jumped back up bristling with excitement. The kids had finally come after him, they would fight, he would win and they'd have to acknowledge him.

"Now that we're even, we can be friends."

"Friends?" Naruto tested the word. He had heard the word before, several times, as he had watched the children play from the sidelines. He had yearned with all his heart for what it implied. Only once before had he heard it addressed towards him.

The same boy who stood before him now had said it. The same boy with the same immaculate brown hair, the same imperious eyes and the same _ No, something was different. He did not have that bruise on his jaw the last time they had spoken and his smile was different too.

He frowned and opened his mouth to retort when something fell out, bouncing on his lower lip before tumbling to the ground. He looked upon his tooth and remembered punching the boy. He raised his head matching the boy's gap-toothed grin with a wider one of his own.

"Friends." He agreed.

The word tasted like iron.

...

 **Authors' Note:**

 **Yup you read that right. Authors' not author's. We are fraternal twins who have been completing each other's assignments since the day the world decided to curse us with them. So when I decided to write a fanfic, naturally my nosy sister decided to join in. You can call her Nai.**

 ** _And you can call my delusional brother Wrath._**

 **The thing I like best about ffnet or any other writing forum is that you can interact with the author as the story is progressing and even affect its course. That's why to reward ourselves for breaching the 10000 word milestone in this story, we are going to tell you guys what makes us tick even if you don't give a damn.**

 **We feel that an IM conversation we had a month and a half ago should do the trick. [Translated from SMS language.]**

 **{**

 **Wrath: I'm thinking of starting a Naruto fanfic.**

 ** _Nai: You just want to chuck your pseudo-science on how Narutoverse should work out there._**

 **Wrath: Yeah, so?**

 ** _Nai: Do you even have a plot?_**

 **Wrath: I think I'll do one of those SI's that are flooding ffnet these days…**

 ** _Nai: Hold it right there hotrod. Nobody's gonna read anything with you as the MC. Now if you put in Light though…_**

 **Wrath: Hey! I'm Hyouin Kyouma! Mad scientist! I'm so cool!**

 ** _Nai: -_-_**

 ** _Nai: Actually on second thoughts, a Kyouma insert would be pretty cool._**

 **Wrath: I was thinking about it but then it would have to be a character driven comedy and the guy wouldn't want to harm a fly.**

 ** _Nai: And that's a problem because…._**

 **Wrath: How would I introduce all those cool concepts I have floating about in my high spec cranium when the MC squeaks at the sight of a little blood?**

 ** _Nai: Right then. My first suggestion stands then. Use Light. The guy is a genius, has ambitions of world domination and boy can he kill. Perfect I say._**

 **Wrath: Well… I'll think up something.**

 ** _Nai: I'm in._**

 **Wrath: What?**

 ** _Nai: I'll co-author it. You got me curious as a cat and with how lazy you are, the wait between chapters will kill me._**

 **Wrath: Hey! I'm not lazy.**

 ** _Nai: -_-_**

 ** _Nai: You do realize that we've been texting for the last 15 mins from adjacent rooms._**

 **Wrath: So? I didn't feel like getting up.**

 ** _Nai: My point exactly._**

 **}**

 **So that's how this all started and we've got tons of shit planned for this fic. I'm in charge of the jutsu mechanics and chakra theory.**

 ** _And I'm doing the character development and emotional bits._**

 **So you know whom to blame when things get sappy.**

 ** _Oi!_**

 ** _See you guys next time!_**

 **Don't forget to rate and review. The more of them there are, the faster we are motivated to update.**

 ** _Nai-_** **Wrath out.**


	5. Chapter 3: Preview

**Our exams are coming up…. So this is a little part of the next chapter. This will be replaced by the full chapter when we are done with it.**

 **#include stddisclaimer.h**

…..

The summer heat. The bead of sweat rolling down his face. The cacophony of the spectating children. All of it was unnecessary. So he discarded it. Color was not needed. So he saw the world in black and white. Taste would not help him win. So he did not perceive taste. Nothing outside the chalk circle mattered. So nothing outside it registered to his senses.

Yet within the circle, nothing eluded him.

His consciousness floated in a void, walled from the extraneous stimuli by a swirling matrix of emotion and sensation and he floated at the very edge of entering his mindscape in an incomplete trance.

"Begin!"

The palm strike brushed past his left ear, ruffling his hair. He saw the muscles flexing under the skin and took note of the amount and concentration of chakra emitted at the end of the strike.

His opponent was aiming for a one hit victory. If he had not dodged the attack then it would have connected with his temple and sent enough diffuse chakra into his brain to knock him out.

He skipped back a step and then another and yet another when his opponent doggedly followed him aiming chakra laden palm-strikes at various vital areas.

He sent chakra to his feet skipping back farther and faster and his opponent followed matching him backward leap for forward leap lashing out whenever their bodies were closest together, chakra trailing from her palms.

[Aspect of Omniscience]

His focus narrowed as his heartbeat and breathing synchronized leaving only the awareness of his opponent and the chalk ring. Every other emotion and sensation slipped like water off the edge of the void.

He saw the muscles of his opponent's right leg tense as she made to leap after him, her right arm drawn back in preparation of a strike. He watched her lavender eyes ringed by engorged veins drift slightly towards his solar plexus as he quickly factored in the chakra she was pushing into her foot to estimate how far she would jump.

He jumped back and increased the chakra to his foot at the last moment landing just beyond her reach, halving the distance between him and the edge of the circle. He pushed off again immediately to avoid a follow up strike from her left hand.

He landed at the very edge of the circle, breaking the pattern of increasing the length of his consecutive jumps.

This was the first deciding point in their spar. If he was able to push off faster than her then she would overshoot the ring and lose the match. On the other hand, since she had kicked off with more force than him, she had closed the gap between them.

It was here that his laser focus came into play. He watched her eyes widen as she realized his ploy. He felt the chakra in her arm surge and watched the muscles strain in order to complete the strike prematurely in a last ditch effort to simultaneously push him out of the ring and use the recoil to stay in it herself.

He tracked the trajectory of her palm while pumping chakra into his grounded foot and swung his right arm in a circular movement to deflect the predicted strike. A classic academy style deflection.

At the very last moment her chakra fluctuated and the strike changed direction suddenly, nearly tearing her muscles and hit his left shoulder, knocking him into a spin as he pushed off towards the center of the ring.

He landed hard and went into a roll to minimize the damage while Hinata was sent skidding on her back in a direction perpendicular to his motion, stopping just shy of the line.

They both got up and faced off in their own stances. Niji in the basic academy stance and Hinata in the low stance of the jyuken. A wave of irritation crashed ineffectually on his mental shields leaving him as calm as ever.

He analyzed his condition. He had managed to fall well enough and had avoided any extra injury but his shoulder was numb from having had her chakra pushed into it. Granted the impromptu strike was not a jyuken palm thrust and had failed to close any tenketsu but having foreign chakra pushed into his coils still hurt. He drew away his focus and the pain stopped registering so strongly.

He should have expected it. With a bloodline limit like the Byakugan that exponentially increased the inflow of visual data the Hyuga were bound to develop some method to parse the data effectively mid battle. It appeared to be some form of mental focusing technique much like his [Aspect of Omniscience]. And with her superior vision and the ability to see chakra Hinata would be able to extrapolate his movements much better than he could hers.

Also she seemed to be faster than him and had enough chakra control to change her strike paths in mid swing by expelling chakra from the tenketsu on one side of her arm. That meant that pure taijutsu was to his disadvantage. More so with one arm numbed.

He relaxed from his stance and stuck both his hands into his pockets. Time to change things up. He walked forward towards her. Hinata tensed at the sudden change in demeanor, her eyes narrowing as she tried to read his body movements. To her surprise, both his muscles and chakra system were fully relaxed.

The proctor asked, "Are you forfeiting?"

"No."

Niji jerked his head at her in a beckoning gesture and they were both in motion.

The strikes were swift, brutal and linear. Each one a proclamation of the user's intention to hurt and maim the opposition until it ceased to stand in the way. Yet in her hands, the two fingered jabs seemed to flow, as straight lines became curves and each strike was burdened with an implicit apology for the pain inflicted. It was beautiful in its own way.

It was beautiful. And it was inefficient.

Niji ducked and weaved his way between the tracery of jyuken strikes and palm thrusts, often feeling the wind of a narrowly dodged strike. The flexibility exercises he had been saddled with since infancy demonstrated their worth as his body seemed to contort in a fashion that seemed to mock the rigidity of the human skeleton.

[Aspect of Avoidance]

Frustrated by the ease with which her jyuken was being countered, Hinata picked up speed and her attacks became more and more telegraphed. She began using larger and more energy consuming moves in order to somehow extend her reach enough to catch the slippery boy.

Soon she was breathing hard, exhausted physically as well as mentally. The continuous use of the Byakugan along with the flurry of chakra expelling jyuken strikes had left her drained of chakra as well.

As she took a shaky stance, her Byakugan deactivated, Niji sprinted forward and slammed his knee into her solar plexus, knocking her out.

This aspect was the culmination of his efforts in the field of suggestive genjutsu. He had even managed to Byakugan and Sharingan proof it. He had found that chakra strings made of yin chakra could easily travel through almost any medium without resistance due to their ethereal nature. And by analyzing the Byakugan he had come to realize that it truly gave its wielder comprehensive vision meaning it could see through the ground. This being rather disconcerting and counter-productive in a fight, as the user would not be able to note the unevenness in the terrain and stumble (a fatal flaw in a clan of close range taijutsu specialists), children were taught how to limit their perception of the ground as soon as they awoke their heritage. Thus he had found a loophole in the Byakugan's perception that allowed him to sneak his chakra strings below its radar, thus making his unique genjutsu usable against the normally immune Hyuga.

He put his hands in his pockets to touch his thighs and push his ethereal chakra string through his own chakra system, to mask it from the Byakugan, down his leg and into the ground and then snared his opponent's chakra network via their foot. He would have generated the chakra string with his feet if he could but the external chakra constructs could only be expelled from tenketsu in which the soles of the feet were severely lacking.

With his hands thus incapacitated, the [Aspect of Avoidance] was a purely evasive technique. He preemptively suggested moves to his opponent via genjutsu and was thus able to 'predict' their movements and coupled with his intense focus in his battle trance he was able to dodge the attacks of almost any opponent, even shinobi several times faster than him.

His winning strategy was to outlast his adversary by suggesting the most strenuous and chakra draining moves while he dodged them as efficiently as possible. He also tried to remain as true to the victim's style as possible to prevent the detection of his genjutsu. For example, suggesting that a jyuken user start performing high-kicks would be so counter to the low stance style which almost exclusively used the hands to attack that it would immediately alert the victim to the fact that the thoughts were not his or her own. Thus he generally kept his suggestions deliberately vague like 'strike low' or 'aim at the right shoulder'.

Yet, even when it was detected it was a powerful technique. Until the chakra string was severed, he could suggest random thoughts to his adversary, providing a critical distraction that could very well be a life or death matter in a fight. It was the parent jutsu for his [Aspect of Pandemonium] and the [Rictus of Indecision].

The [Aspect of Pandemonium] involved firing off hundreds of conflicting suggestions at the opponent in rapid succession to destroy their focus and drown out their battle instincts. It was a tremendously effective distraction that was almost impossible to ignore. It was also a double edged sword as it rendered Niji's own mind incapable of processing further information as he was busy calling up nonsense data to feed into the link. But as a support technique it was truly terrifying.

The [Rictus of Indecision] was a variant of this aspect. It was the paralysis technique he had used on Naruto the first time that they had met. It applied the same concept as [Aspect of Pandemonium] but instead of an incoherent jumble of desires, the victim was made to vacillate between the suggestions 'move' and 'stay still' so rapidly that the target's body basically froze up. It would not work on anyone familiar enough with their mind to isolate such blatantly disruptive thoughts but given Naruto's miniscule attention span and unfamiliarity with genjutsu, it had been easy.

"Winner. Niji Yoru."

Niji circulated his chakra in his left shoulder to flush out the remnants of Hinata's chakra and relaxed his focus. He winced as all the hitherto ignored sensations crashed into his awareness including the dull throb of the beginnings of a massive headache. The consequences of forcing his brain to work at a heightened capacity. He watched the proctor revive Hinata with smelling salts while massaging his temples and letting the adulation of his batch mates wash over him.

"Bow and make the sign of reconciliation," intoned the proctor.

"Thank you for the spar." They both chorused as they intertwined the first two fingers of their right hands together in a display of amity.

…..


End file.
